A BIZARRE PROPOSED BASEBALL RULE CHANGE.
A BIZARRE PROPOSED BASEBALL RULE CHANGE. According to this article by Jeff Passan on the Yahoo sports website, major league baseball is planning to test in the minor leagues this season a new rule which would automatically place a runner on second base at the start of each extra inning. (link via Colin Whitchurch on the Baseball Prospectus Southside website). It seems like an April Fools joke, but Passan writes that the proposal: “…has wide-ranging support at the highest levels of the league….A version of the rule has been used in international baseball for nearly a decade….” Another sign that the news of the proposal should be taken seriously is that Joe Torre, who is Major League Baseball’s Chief Baseball Officer, is in strongly in favor of the experiment.
I’m not a purist, but the problem with this rule is it seems that it would likely result in a bunting competition.
I understand that lots of overtime rules in games reduce a multi-faceted competition to a few of its elements, but I still feel as though, say, a shoot out in hockey represents a core feature of the game as opposed to bunting which is a tertiary skill at best.